Note: If you are planning a new deployment, then you must select either an audio-only deployment or a web deployment with WebEx scheduling. New deployments with MeetingPlace scheduling are not supported.

Audio-Only Deployments

New deployments of audio-only systems are supported in Release 8.5. In these systems, you have Cisco Unified MeetingPlace audio (and optionally) video conferencing. You do not have Web meetings.

However, you may want to install an internal only Web Server if you want:

These deployments have failover capability. If you choose a failover deployment, you have up to 1200 ports per media server.

You can use Conference Manager to schedule continuous meetings in audio-only deployments. A continuous meeting is a type of scheduled, recurring meeting that reserves the meeting ID and ports indefinitely, so that participants can join the meeting at any time on any day.

Secure Audio Conferencing

Secure audio conferencing (TLS/SRTP) support is available on both EMS (Express Media Server) and HMS (Hardware Media Server). It is available for new or migrated audio-only deployments, as well as migrated deployments with MeetingPlace scheduling. (New deployments with MeetingPlace scheduling are not supported in Release 8.5). Enabling sRTP requires UC Manager 7.0 or above to enable SIP trunks with sRTP for audio conferences only. Video is not available for sRTP meetings. Enabling sRTP on MeetingPlace affects capacity (See Capacity Quick Reference Tables).

Fast Blast Dial-Out Calls

A fast blast dial-out call is available in Release 8.5.2, for emergency response. When the first person calls in, the system dials out to up to 95 other people.

However, when using a fast blast dial-out call:

Only this one continuous meeting can be active at one time

All other regular (reservationless or scheduled) meetings are disabled (for performance reasons)

Video conferencing is disabled

Note: This feature is supported on new Release 8.5.2 audio only deployments. You cannot upgrade or migrate an existing system and use this feature.

A deployment with the fast blast dial-out feature has the following restrictions:

No integrations (such as IBM Lotus Notes, or Microsoft Outlook) are supported with this feature

Web conferencing is not supported with this feature

Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Web Server is not supported with this feature

Application Server must be deployed with an Express Media Server, on a Cisco MCS 7845-I3-RC2 or on a virtual machine on a VMware ESXi 4.1 host, on a Cisco UCS C210 M2. (For complete details on supported hardware, see System Requirements.

Note: This feature is separate from the existing blast dial-out call, on audio-only deployments or deployments with MeetingPlace scheduling, where 24 people can join a meeting quickly. This blast dial-out call applies to Application Servers with either a Hardware Media Server or an Express Media Server.

Deployments with Cisco WebEx Scheduling

With this deployment, you can create a multinode system of up to 16 nodes (up to fourteen conferencing nodes and two Meeting Director nodes), spread geographically accross the globe, into logical groupings of sites and regions. By deploying a multinode system, you also have active-active redundancy. Users can use a single phone number to access all conferences.

Note: Multinode systems are only supported for these deployments with Cisco WebEx scheduling. They are not supported for audio/video only deployments with MeetingPlace scheduling.

Note: Single-node deployments with Cisco WebEx scheduling are supported starting with Release 8.5.4. Contact your Cisco Account Manager for further details. The Cisco Account Manager will work with Product Management to define a deployment that best addresses your needs.